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Superior hunters, please help this mere plebeian out.

I'm struggling with my Survival rotation. I leveled through 85 on BM spec and got halfway decent at managing my focus and rotation. The problem is that BM is ineffective, or rather less effective, in dealing damage in raid scenarios and some heroic scenarios in the current patch. Plus Survival was always more fun for me. I want it back. So, here's my survival talent tree, and my rotation is as follows:

Hunter's Mark - Rapid Fire - Serpent Sting - Black Arrow - Kill Shot (if available) - Explosive Shot - Arcane Shot - Cobra Shot (when focus regen is necessary)

My problem is twofold:

1. I'm out of focus by the time I've popped my first Explosive Shot. This means I'm skipping Arcane Shot, and hammering out two or three Cobra Shots to regenerate enough focus to get Explosive Shot or Arcane Shot useable again. Unless Lock & Load procs, this seems like a great deal of downtime while I wait for Cobra to cast. It also becomes a big pain in the ass if I find myself out of focus and needing to move to get out of something bad. I can switch to Aspect of the Fox to get some Cobra shots off while I move, but is that worth the sacrifice in damage versus Hawk?

2. Measurably, I'm not getting much better DPS out of Survival than I was out of BM. In every scenario that I've been able to compare (mostly against test dummies, but a few heroics), I'm within 400-500 DPS on Survival as I am on Beast Master. Everything I've read on Teh Interwebz tells me this shouldn't be the case, so logically (or perhaps illogically?) I attribute this to bad management of my rotation and/or excessive downtime.

I don't have grand illusions of being a DPS topper, but I do want to be a reliable utility damage dealer, and I KNOW I can do better than I am. So, teach me your ways, competent hunters, and reduce Thunderbad.

Bah, BM is fine for damage output these days, with the primary exception so far being Atramedes' air phase. Just keep an eye on your pet for the "switch/stop dps" scenarios (this applies to all pet classes, but is especially important to BM since half your buttons poke your pet's target and not necessarily yours).

Aspect of the Hawk, until very recently, was so little of a benefit that for movement intensive fights people would just stay in Fox for the whole time. Aspect switching is off the GCD, so if you have the manual dexterity to set up and use a stance dance macro (so you cast Fox as you start Cobra Shot when you need to move, then switch back to Hawk for your heavy hits and/or during burn phases) you can go that route, assuming you don't mind hearing the aspect sfx every three seconds. That said, never be afraid to stay in Fox until you get used to the major "stand and burn" phases of a given boss.

In my (admittedly limited) experience with SV, Arcane Shot felt like a sometimes food, since Explosive Shot is both expensive and frequent. It's perfectly reasonable to be out of focus immediately after your open (DoT/DoT/Ex.Shot) and just lean on Cobras till Ex Shot comes back.

Yes, survival is pretty focus starved. At least at our gear level. So you won't be using many arcane unless there's massive haste buffs, and you may even struggle with getting enough focus to keep explosive on cooldown if the fight features heavy movement components or requires regular tranq. I do know for me I try to put priority on explosive ahead of the others (excluding kill shot) since it's such a huge part of our damage and the biggest thing focus drain and arcane is at the far end - it's rare we have nothing else to cast or about to come off cooldown and enough focus to dump into arcane. But yeah, you end up doing a whole lot of Cobra followed by explosive.

So then is it fare to say that after an initial cast of Serpent Sting and Black Arrow, Explosive Shot should be the focus with Cobra filling the gaps and generating focus? What about keeping Black Arrow up? I realize in a raid scenario, there's normally something more powerful than Serpent Sting active, or by the time my Power Aura has told me that my last Serpent Sting has decayed, one of you guys have already got another one on the target before me, so perhaps I'm focusing on the wrong part of my rotation.

Incidentally, in Heroic Grim Batol last night, I was pulling my highest DPS yet since 4.0 in Survival mode and finding Aspect of the Fox quite useful during those move-your-ass fights.

Well, your serpent should never (or extremely rarely) fall off because you need to keep cobra going for focus and it will keep it refreshed, our serpent stings don't matter it's one Serpent per hunter, we don't overwrite anything, you can still and should put up yours. If for nothing else then for the +dmg buff you get to targets with it on on your other attacks. Black Arrow, cast it when it's up, I put it's priority behind KS (1st) and ExShot (2nd). But yes, the very first part of a fight is rough since that extra drain of having to stick up serpent and BA and preferably get explosive in as fast as you can...

Good info. Thanks

Normal Rotation

This is my rotation for the first 10 shots (I don't pop Rapid Fire until the appropriate time, so this is the non Rapid Fire SV rotation):

ES > SrS > BA > CS > CS > ES > CS > CS > CS > ES

This depends a lot on your haste. For example, I sometimes have to wait a half second for my second ES. If you have a higher haste than me, you won't have to. If lower, you might want to fit in another CS before the second ES.

The first three shots will always be some combination of ES, SrS and BA. There are different theories which to use (most think doing SrS -- because of Noxious Stings -- then ES, then BA), but I use ES, SrS, then BA since I want to Misdirect as much damage as possible, but it's up to you and it won't make much of a difference either way. If you do use SrS, then ES, then BA, you'll likely wait for just a moment before your second ES arrives off CD.

If you look at the Focus requirements for ES (44) and the focus regen from CS (9) and from haste, you'll notice that if you are just using CS to generate enough focus for ES, you'll slowly (over 20 - 30 seconds or so) start gaining more than you need. This is where AS (Arcane) comes in. You'll use AS probably once every 30 seconds or so. Your normal rotation of using CS to generate enough focus for ES will always be producing slightly more than you need, but you'll use that extra focus for BA when its CD is up (every 24 seconds). If BA is still on CD and you're gaining enough focus for your ES's, then that's when you use AS. Again, it's not often and it's not a dramatic dps loss if you don't use it. For example, on a normal rotation I don't use AS until after I've used my second BA, which means it's at least 30 seconds into the fight before I use AS.

Lock and Load

Once LnL procs you'll want to use ES > CS > ES > AS > ES. Use AS as the filler between the 2nd and 3rd ES if you have enough focus (you usually will if LnL procs, but not always). If you don't have enough focus, use CS.


Haste Effects and Thrill of the Hunt

For Heroism or other increased haste effects, or when Thrill of the Hunt procs (you gain focus back from your shot) and you find that this normal rotation is getting you close to capping your focus, then dump it with AS as needed.

Also, you have a few gear requirements unmet:

9 unenchanted items
Missing Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Jewelcrafting:
3 unused Dragon's Eye

And your hit is currently 6.9%, so you might want to reforge to get to 8%.